Plant Breeding
Field crops are bred through techniques that take advantage of the plant's method of pollination. A plant is self-pollinated if pollen from one flower is transferred to the same or another flower of the same plant. A plant is cross-pollinated if the pollen comes from a flower on a different plant.
Corn plants (Zea mays L.) can be bred by both self-pollination and cross-pollination techniques. Corn has separate male and female flowers on the same plant, located on the tassel and the ear, respectively. Natural pollination occurs in corn when wind blows pollen from the tassels to the silks that protrude from the tops of the incipient ears.
The development of a hybrid corn variety involves three steps: (1) the selection of plants from various germplasm pools; (2) the selfing of the selected plants for several generations to produce a series of inbred lines, which, although different from each other, breed true and are highly uniform; and (3) crossing the selected inbred lines with unrelated inbred lines to produce the hybrid progeny (F.sub.1). During the inbreeding process in corn, the vigor of the lines decreases. Vigor is restored when two unrelated inbred lines are crossed to produce the hybrid progeny. An important consequence of the homozygosity and homogeneity of the inbred lines is that the hybrid between any two inbreds will always be the same. Once the inbreds that give a superior hybrid have been identified, the hybrid seed can be reproduced indefinitely as long as the homogeneity of the inbred parents is maintained.
The objective of commercial maize inbred line development programs is to develop new inbred lines that combine to produce high grain yields and superior agronomic performance in hybrid combination. The primary trait breeders seek is yield. However, other major agronomic traits are of importance in hybrid combination and have an impact on yield or otherwise provide superior performance in hybrid combinations. Such traits include percent grain moisture at harvest, relative maturity, resistance to stalk breakage, resistance to root lodging, grain quality, and disease and insect resistance. In addition the lines per se must have acceptable performance for parental traits such as seed yields, kernel sizes, pollen production, all of which affect the ability to provide parental lines in sufficient quantity and quality for hybridization. Traits have been shown to be under genetic control and many if not all of the traits are affected by multiple genes. Thus, to be selected as an inbred line, the inbred must be able to combine such that the desired traits are passed to the hybrid and also be able to satisfy production requirements as a parental line.